The Humiliation of the Church and the Coming National Revival by Michael L. Brown for Ask Dr Brown
It has been a very difficult season for conservative Christians in America. There have been countless scandals, both minor and major, sexual and financial, rocking all different sectors of the church. There have been prominent leaders who have renounced their faith. There have been well-publicized, failed prophecies about Trump’s reelection. The list goes on and on, and we have egg on our face. Lots of it.
And what about the extreme politicization of so many Christians in the last 5 years, to the point that some of us became better known for our support of a political leader than for our allegiance to Jesus?
This is time of humiliation, of confusion, of dishonor, a time to get low before the Lord rather than a time to strut.
Now is your chance to support Gospel News Network.
We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
Worst of all, we have brought reproach to the name of Jesus and disrepute to the reputation of the gospel. We have driven people away from the Lord more than drawn people to Him.
Yet all is not lost. To the contrary, the humbling of the church is actually a good sign. As believers, we are being purified by God’s refining fire (see Malachi 3:1-5). As the Body of Christ, we are being disciplined and judged (not condemned) by the Lord (see Hebrews 12:3-13; 1 Peter 4:17-18).
We are being pruned – a painful yet necessary process – so that we can bring forth more and better fruit (see John 15:1-2).
We are being rebuked and corrected so that God can bring us to a better place (see the messages to the 7 churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2-3).
We are being humbled so that we can be lifted up (see 1 Peter 5:6; James 4:6).
In fact, the lower we will go – confessing our sins, acknowledging our faults, turning away from the bad and turning to the good – the higher the Lord will lift us, meaning, the higher we will go in receiving God’s grace and mercy.
Of course, it would have been better if we did not need to be refined. Or pruned. Or rebuked. Or corrected. Or humbled.
But that is not the case. Instead, for many years now, rather than the church changing the world, the world has changed the church. And rather than our light penetrating the darkness, the darkness has dimmed our light.
We have watered down our message to make it acceptable to the world, thereby robbing it of its convicting and transforming power.
We have lowered our standards so as not to offend, leaving us stuck in the miserable middle, half-worldly and half-Christian, worthy of mockery and derision from both the lost and the saved.
The sins of the world are the sins of the church, from porn to no-fault divorce, and from abortion to hate-filled social media posts. (Really now, aside from Scripture memes and gospel videos, are our social media pages much better than those of non-believers?)
Is it any wonder that so many young people today who have been raised in the church are not following in the faith of their parents? Is it any wonder that they are questioning the veracity of the Bible and the reality of God? And when we preach a non-experiential gospel, is it any surprise when they conclude that our message is one of words only? Can we fault them for never experiencing God’s power when we have not introduced them to that very real power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead?
